First class volume down by a billion pieces in first quarter
First class mail volume was down by just under a billion pieces from the prior year in the quarter ending December 31, according to volume numbers released by the US Postal Service on Wednesday. The 3.8% decline in first class volume was only partially offset by a slight (0.5%) increase in standard volume. In terms of dollars, first class was down $415 million, while the standard increase was just $30 million. There was continued growth in both Express Mail (up 5.7%) and Priority (up 4.1%), but the additional revenue from the two classes combined came to just $75 million more than the prior year.
The decline in volume wasn’t a total surprise- a year ago there was a sharp spike in mail volume attributed by USPS CFO Dick Strasser to “the quadrennial impact of election mailings, increased activity in marketing financial services and credit cards”.
An additional concern for the postal service was a 0.7% decline in Total Factor Productivity.
Source: USPS Revenue Pieces and Weights Reports, Postal Quarter 1, FY 2006